In The Toilet

     Sports… in the toilet.  The Rangers, my Rangers, can’t seem to string together anything good for any length of time.  They follow up a great win against the Sabres yesterday with a tough loss vs. the Red Wings.  After watching the New York Giants win over the Dallas Cowboys, I turned on the Rangers/Red Wings game, it had started several minutes earlier, and it looked like there was a Red Wings power play, and it looked like a pretty good power play too, very effective, several good chances on goal, though the stellar play of King Henrik  and a sturdy effort by the defenders up front kept the Red Wings from scoring…but something just didn’t look right.  I figured it out after a few seconds. 

   It wasn’t a power play, they were playing even strength, and what I thought was great defensive play on the Rangers part was in fact desperate defense in the face of a hellacious attack by Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and the Wings.   I was pleased to see the Rangers take a lead late in the first period, and held out hope, but I turned the game off to catch up on the other action in the NFL, and when I came back, the game was over and the Rangers had lost.  Dammit.    

    One other hockey note, this one a slight bit more personal.  Those of you who are regular readers of this space (all 3 of you) may remember I made some picks in a rather aptly titled section of a post about my hockey picks for the coming year.  It’s only two months in, and already my WILDLY INACCURATE NHL PREDICTIONS are proving to be wildly inaccurate! I picked Colorado and Atlanta to suck, the Canes to finish well behind the Caps but make the playoffs, and for Vancouver to run away with the Northwest conference.  

     The Lanch are one of the best teams in the league, the Thrashers are doing surprisingly well, The Canes have been in free fall since the start of the season, and Vancouver seems to have a commitment to mediocrity.   There is more, but you can read the rest of it for yourselves. 

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    This list  by the FDIC of all the Failed banks is long and is going to get longer before things finally even out, though it looks like the economy is getting better, especially with the happy job numbers that came out on Friday.

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     I like the fact that our President has his head wrapped around the  unemployment problem the way he does.  He understands that he has only a limited ability to affect the overall job market, through loans to keep businesses afloat, through taxation, and through pushing legislation that creates jobs, and these are all limited powers. 

    Which is why it makes sense for him to do what he did Friday.  Talk to business leaders, get THEM to do something, because if they don’t do something, the comeback of our economy will take longer than it necessarily has to.  It is on the business community, both small and large, to maintain and upkeep the financial infrastructure by hiring and keep employees even though it may cut into their bottom lines in the short term.  Greed kills here. 

    Though things are still looking like they are in the toilet out there in the job market, things will get better soon enough.  On a related note, I have a job interview tomorrow evening. Wish me luck.  The job I think may be a bit above and beyond what I have done before, but not so much that I couldn’t do the job.     

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   That’s it from here.  Later!

John Maynard Keynes

Today’s Nuggets, Via wikiquote:  Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.  Michel de Montaigne

Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.  Jean Jacque Rousseau

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.  John Maynard Keynes

Anagram: Too Much Sugar/ Hug Our Mascot

        The title has it about right, ladies and gentlemen, I went to a party for my nephew James, 4 years old and happy just being a

Toys for Boys

dude.  I ate all the food on earth and had enough sugar to kill your average human.  Lucky for me I’m slightly above average, or else that would’ve been my ass!  Seriously though I was out, had fun hanging with the kids.  Everybody had fun, and right now I am still buzzing from all the sugar I had before.  I’m thinking of downing some painkillers just to handle the inevitable crash that’ll happen in a little while. 

    The little guy got a million little toys.  He got a boatload of Matchbox Monster truck stuff, He got a bunch of Thomas the Tank engine stuff, a few toys, a few books.  He got a lot of other stuff.  His favorite toy was not something he got as a present but one of the lil party favors they were handing out to all the kid.  A little glow stick with a connector that makes it a little glowstick, i dunno, necklace type of thing.  He was the Happiest little dude I have ever seen.  He was happy when he was beating the tar out of the little gravedigger monster truck pinata that were my brother James picked up for his sons birthday.  He was happy when his father and I were indoctrinating the child.  “Repeat after me, James, Flyers…”  “Flyers…” “SUCK”  “SUCK…hehehehe”  He was just loving every minute of just being a four year old.  That kind of joy, that happiness just being in the moment with a few simple trinkets, that is something that an adult could really learn from. 

     Happy Birthday James!   

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    Onto slightly more weighty issues. 

       The joy that is the situation with Iran’s Nuclear facilities has been thrown into rather more sharp focus lately.  The Iranians are capable of making a nuclear weapon, so say senior staff  members of the IAEA.  They apparently have been working on a weapon since approximately 2002, which is kind of surprising, seeing how the U.S. said in 2007 that they weren’t capable of building a weapon and had given up working on one in 2003.  The report does state that this conclusion is tentative, but nevertheless this is a somewhat startling revelation. 

 

Toys for Big Boys

   More startling is the fact that the outgoing head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, has tried, and been successful for a while now, to squash this report and keep it from coming out.  Read this, and this, and in particular check the date of release of the second document.  Now I am unsure if that is an internal release date, or if the document was released to the general public at that time.  

     One wonders why this didn’t get more press, it should have.  Maybe this got press, but I am having trouble recalling much of any coverage on IRAN GOING NUCLEAR out there on the news last year.  It would have been a HUGE political football during the campaign.  You’d figure that would have gotten more press, until you take into account Mr. ElBaradei and his Pro-Iranian stances.  He has been a stalwart in some areas, a good man, doing much for nuclear nonproliferation, but he has time and again turned a blind eye to Iran in his tenure as head of the IAEA.  Anything that happens with Iran and nuclear weapons here is clearly and directly on the head of Mr. ElBaradei.

    The hardest part of building the weapon is enriching the uranium to make the warheads out of, and the Iranians  have already learned how to do this, with the unwitting help of Mr. ElBaradei and his non-action on Iran and it’s nuclear intentions and capabilities. More on this as it becomes available.

    Boys and their toys.  What can you do as a citizen but shake your head and ask why this is happening?

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     That’s it from here, except the viddy.  Part of the time at the party we were watching sports, mostly The Notre Dame – Washington football, but there was also some Ranger hockey.  That is what I wanted to watch, to be honest, and I caught a few minutes of it there.  Twas nice.  It was even better when I got home and watched the Rangers soundly beat the Ottawa Senators 5-2.  It was a very well played game, not perfect but well played.  Highlights were Michael Del Zotto’s first NHL goal, which turned out to be the game winner, the play of Marian Gaborik, speedy smart player as always, and of  course the magnificent play of King Henrik, and a happy little fight at the end of the Game between Aaron Voros and Mike Fisher.  Aaron whupped his ass, Fisher fought hard, but Aaron beat him, and beat him but good.  But you be the judge.  Watch and Enjoy

   

    It was one helluva home opener for the Rangers.

    G’night!

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Today’s Nuggets, By Albert Einstein, Via wikiquote:  The position in which we are now is a very strange one which in general political life never happened. Namely, the thing that I refer to is this: To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.
This is really the cornerstone of our situation. Now, I believe what we should try to bring about is the general conviction that the first thing you have to abolish is war at all costs, and every other point of view must be of secondary importance.

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Anagram: Playing Canasta/ Analytic Pagans

        I really am dragging a bit here. I am running more and harder than I have in a long time.  Just short of 50 miles this week, not much different than the previous few weeks, but what I’ve done different is alter where I’m running.  I have added a fair amount of hill running to my repertoire and frankly it’s taken a fair bit out of me.  I don’t mind to be honest, I like working hard and this has been the focus of much of my mind lately to be honest.

      I’m still looking for work, don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up any bit of effort on the job hunt by focusing on running.  What I am doing is focusing on something that has made me better stronger and more successful.  The Job hunt has been amazingly unsuccessful the last few weeks.  Haven’t gotten a nibble, not a bite, and it is a bit disconcerting.  But there is good news.   Next week I am going to be going back to workforce one and I am going to try to get a voucher to have the city pay for retraining me to be a paralegal.   It is a gatlin on-line course, 300 course hours covering tort law, criminal law, product liability and estates law, among other subjects. 

        I’ve touched on some of these subjects, albeit lightly through my years working at law firms.  I know, I know, what does a copy guy know? If he has half a brain, he tries his best to learn what the lawyers he’s working with are doing so he can best assist them.  THAT was the real secret to why everyone loved me where I worked for years, I was in the same boat as the people who worked with me and did my level best to have my head in the same place they were, which was not making copies, but in the actual work, the actual law, and would take the time to talk to them about it, to soak in what I could.  Much of the interest that I have shown in actual law here is based on what I learned from people there. 

     I feel confident here.  I do in truth dislike the thought of working in an office again, but I’ll go where the money goes, and Paralegal pays well, better than what I was making even at an absolutely base level.  Nice.

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     I am done, I’m gonna go relax with my wife and watch some hockey highlights.  My Rangers lost tonight 3-2 to the Stanley Cup champion Penguins, they played hard but the breaks didn’t go there way out there.  Still managed to keep it close, The Pens have a TON of talent, but they never really ran away with it.   The Rangers were bad in a few spots though, The power play was a hairy mess, and it seemed every time Wade Redden got the puck it left the zone.  This team needs someone to work on passing drills, the passing just wasn’t crisp.  I like Gaborik, ya can’t help but like him, he’s got tons of talent, but I think my Fav new Ranger is the Kid, Del Zotto.  19 years old, good presence on the ice, excellent awareness overall.  I was duly impressed.   

    A viddy someone shot at the game of a fight between Brashear and Goddard.  Note the 30 second mark, right after Brashear’s helmet comes off, goddard tries several times to headbutt him. 

    

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      The Job numbers that came out earlier today were a LOT worse than anyone thought they would be, two hundred sixty three thousand, over one hundred thousand more jobs were lost than were projected.  The market, bless their hearts, didn’t lose their minds and panic.  The market only ended up losing 21 points.  Nice.  I’m proud of you bums

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   That’s about it for me.  Later.  I am going to do something a little different tonight, rather than quotes from wikiquote, I am going to toss out  some unsuccessful attempts to amend the constitution, as listed on wikisource.

Today’s Nuggets:  Birthright citizenship abolition amendment

Proposed April 13, 2005

SECTION 1. No person born in the United States after the date of the ratification of this article shall be a citizen of the United States, or of any State, on account of birth in the United States unless the mother or father of the person is a citizen of the United States, or is lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States, at the time of the birth.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment (a.k.a. The Hatch Amendment) Proposed July 10, 2003 (failed)

SECTION 1. A person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been for 20 years a citizen of the United States, and who is otherwise eligible to the Office of President, is not ineligible to that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States.

SECTION 2. This article shall not take effect unless it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States not later than 7 years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Anagram: I Wasn’t Invited/ In Distant View

       Usually I’m a little more on the ball than this, usually a little bit more attentive to these details.  But apparently I missed out on the big news before it came out. Maybe because I was blogging about and thinking about hockey too damned much.  What did I miss?

    

        The Market dropped like a stone today.  Fell 203 points.  Now, it couldn’t stay up forever, obviously, but a 2+% drop on the strength(or weakness) of manufacturing and jobs loss data. Oof, missed the boat completely here.  And it gets worse, futures are down at this point, because traders are getting a bit antsy about the September Jobs report due out before the opening bell.   I wouldn’t get too too nervous though.  It’s not like those job numbers are going to go back to December 2008/ January 2009 levels any time soon. There are whispers that the number will be worse than expected, those being the exact words I read in a report from cnbc a few minutes ago.  We’ll see if there is any real reason to fear when those numbers come out in a few hours, and if the markets will act, react, or overreact to the news. 

    I’m expecting that any number over 150,000 will spook the market, which some people see as being very overvalued, and will cause a selloff similar to, but not as precipitous as the one we saw today. I have seen, and if you pay attention to the viddy below, you’ll see that the consensus is for the fall in the September job numbers to be around in the 150-160,000 range.  Bloomberg has a worst case consensus range of 235,000.

      

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     That’s about it for me tonight.  I’ve been watching hockey, and I am going to go catch some post game stuff on the NHL network.   BTW I was watching Vs. before and I watched the first goal of the year.  For those of you that are interested, it was scored by Brooks Laich on a power play, assisted by Nik Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin.  The Bruins Goalie, Tim Thomas,  got pulled out of position and fell  down away from the goal mouth and the puck essentially landed on Laich’s stick, who came around from behind the net to get into position, with several feet of goal mouth in front of him and no one to stop him. 

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Later!

Today’s Nuggets, by John Maynard Keynes, Via wikiquote:  The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Anagram: Ice Cold Predictions/ Odd Icicle Inspector

       

    You’ve read the best predictions of the most knowledgeable writers and prognosticators on the upcoming NHL season.  You’ve listened to

gimme da puck!

NHL Live and all the hockey talk you could cram into you’re almost semi busy day.  You’ve looked online to read TSN’s 30 teams in 30 days, and NHL.com’s 30 teams in 15 days.  You are jam packed with hockey knowledge.

      You’ve drafted your fantasy team, giggled at the guy who drafted Semyon Varlamov in the 9th round, and then giggled again as you drafted The Bulin Wall in the 10th, enjoyed watching Zach Parise fall into your lap when the guy ahead of you inexplicably picked Corey Perry 4th, and laughed your ass off at the noob who drafted Marian Hossa .

    You know your hockey… Kinda.  Hossa’ll be back.

    So now you are here to read the predictions of a man who called the Super Bowl…err… wrong sport.  I picked the Red Wings to win it all last year, but I goofed even bigger and picked the Penguins to lose in the first round to the Flyers.  Ah well, no one gets them all right, and I’m the proof.  Time to give you my view of the upcoming NHL 2009-2010 season. So without further adieu….

     2009-2010’s WILDLY INACCURATE NHL PREDICTIONS!

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         Eastern Conference/Atlantic division:   DEVILS/ PENS/ FLYERS/ RANGERS/ ISLANDERS   Those F****** Devils will win the Division,  The Pens will finish One game behind the Devils, thanks to a lucky Islanders team beating the Pens on Long Island in the final game of the year, and the Flyers will finish in third in the division, eighth in the eastern conference, just beating out the Rangers by winning both ends of a home and home against the Rangers to end the season.  Heads will roll at the Garden, and Gaborik and Lundqvist will just not be enough.  The Islanders will, despite the memorable finish, not do much for Jonathan Tavares or Dwayne Roloson and finish two points ahead of the second worst team  in the NHL and the worst in the eastern conference, the Atlanta Thrashers.

     Eastern Conference/ Northeast division:  BRUINS/  CANADIENS/ SABRES/ SENATORS/ MAPLE LEAFS   Snow will fall in July in Florida. The Southern United States will turn Democratic. Glenn Beck will admit to being a flaming Liberal.  The Toronto Maple Leafs will make the Playoffs.  All astounding predictions.  All of them WRONG.  The Bruins will run away with the Division, with the Canadiens close behind, but fifth overall in conference, with Buffalo a few points ahead of the Flyers to finish 7th overall, and third in the division.  The Leafs…poor leafs, so close and yet so far.  They will have the playoffs in their grasp, but lose their last 5 games and finish just out of contention.  Toronto will howl with rage, and fall from third in the division to 5th, finishing a few points behind the Ottawa Senators, who will play hard but will simply not have enough this year.  Two tough teams will hit some tough luck.  Better luck next year.

     Eastern Conference/ Southeast Division:  CAPITALS/ HURRICANES/ PANTHERS/ LIGHTNING/ THRASHERS   Alexander the Great, along with the rest of the Caps will run away with the Division and the Conference, and finish with the best record in the NHL.  The Hurricanes will finish several games behind but in the Playoffs.  Florida and Tampa will fight hard but simply not have enough to make the playoffs, and Atlanta will just plain suck.  Ilya Kovalchuk will not have enough to carry this team to the promised land…or even mediocrity. 

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     Western Conference/ Central Division:  RED WINGS/ PREDATORS/ BLACKHAWKS/ BLUES/ BLUE JACKETS   Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and ROY candidate Justin Abdelkader will shoot their way to the top of the conference and division, with little competition from second place Nashville, who will finish with 6 more wins this year than last,  and will go from being in last place and out of the playoffs last year to second in the division this year.  The Blackhawks will just make the playoffs, despite the sometime shoddy goaltending of Cristobal Huet.  The Blues and the Jackets will play hard but just not have enough to get past the competition and will both just miss the playoffs, both losing tough ones in their last few games of the year.

  

Clarence Campbell with the Stanley Cup in 1957

 Western Conference/ Northwest Division:  CANUCKS/ FLAMES/ OILERS/ WILD/ AVALANCHE   Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver A**holes will run away with the Northwest, and miss the Western conference #2 spot by only a few points.  The Flames will ride the Goalie pads of Miikka Kiprusoff to a respectable 2nd place finish.  The Oilers will surprise a great many people and actually make the Playoffs this year, thanks in large part to outstanding clutch goal scoring from Ales Hemsky, and amazingly strong defense in front of the net.  The Wild will just miss the playoffs, despite outstanding netminding from Nik Backstrom, there just won’t be enough offense.  Colorado… they will be the Cleveland Browns of the NHL, they’ll suck but at least they won’t be the worst.  Their lack of offense will make up for their lack of defense.

   Western Conference/ Pacific Division:   SHARKS/ DUCKS/ STARS/ KINGS/ COYOTES   Dany Heatley will vie for the scoring title(but lose to Ovechkin) and will carry the Sharks to another division win with the help of Vezina trophy contender Evgeni Nabokov, while the Ducks will ride sticks of Bobby Ryan and Ryan Getzlaf to a second second place finish in the division.  The Stars will make a run but ultimately come up short, and while the Kings will finish several points back, the Coyotes will finish with a whimper, with the worst record in the NHL, hurt as much by their inability to score as by their inability to work out a way to stay in the desert.

      

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     In Short the Conferences will Finish Like this: 

   Eastern Conference          1:  Washington Capitals      2:  Boston Bruins     3:  New Jersey Devils  4: Pittsburgh Penguins  5: Montreal Canadiens 6: Carolina Hurricanes  7: Buffalo Sabres   8: Philadelphia Flyers  / 9: New York Rangers  10: Ottawa Senators  11:  Florida Panthers  12:  Toronto Maple Leafs  13: Tampa Bay Lightning  14:  New York Islanders  15: Atlanta Thrashers

    Western Conference         1:  Detroit Red Wings  2:  San Jose Sharks  3: Vancouver Canucks  4: Calgary Flames  5:  Nashville Predators  6: Anaheim Ducks  7: Chicago Blackhawks  8:  Edmonton Oilers / 9:  Minnesota Wild  10: Dallas Stars  11: Saint Louis Blues  12: Los Angeles Kings  13: Colombus Blue Jackets  14: Colorado Avalanche  15: Phoenix Coyotes 

    Hope these crappy picks gave you a giggle.  That’s it from here! G’night, Hockey Fans! …. Oh BTW, you remember when I wrote at the beginning of this that you giggled at that guy who Drafted Varlamov in the 9th round?  Well…that was me.   Missed out on Pekka Rinne and needed a third goalie. I didn’t know he’d lose the starting spot to Theodore!(who as of now is the Caps starting goalie)  Oops!  LOL.  L8r!

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Today’s Nuggets, Via Wikiquote:  You can’t just stand and say to yourself, ‘OK, right now I’m the best. That’s it. No more working.’ If you’re a good player you have to be working harder and harder. This is not just my goal, it’s my team goal. We can improve more and we can probably be even better than last year. My dream is to be the best.   Alexander Ovechkin

Management wins Stanley Cups. Players can only do their best. You’ve got to bring the right ingredients to make a Stanley Cup winner and if the manager is not doing his job, the players can only do so much. You produce and do what’s right, but if you don’t have the talent there, you’re not going to win many games.   Andy Bathgate

Individual records are nice to get, but before the season starts, you want to play to win the Stanley Cup!   Guy Lafleur